Planet Ben

Let’s just face the truth already … this isn’t Planet Zetaboards at all. It’s Planet Ben. I look down the list of recent entries and over and over again I see “Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben”. I don’t feel bad at all though, because I would much rather read about Ben’s life (and antics) than post about my own. Plus Ben has a refined sense of writing that I couldn’t describe with my current vocabularly. So for now I’ll just say it’s “real real good eh?”

I’m taking a few courses this semester at my high school, and none of them are mandatory for me. It’m finding it extremely difficult to attend this semester simply because I don’t have to be there. I’m 18 years old now (soon to be 19) and legally they can’t do anything about my poor attendance either. It’s quite sad because I really enjoy the lessons I have but I find I can do them more thouroughly from home then I can from school. For example, in my computer programming class I can usually squeeze through 1 lesson a day. This week I stayed home 2 days and ended up completing two chapters on my own. I find that I work a lot better when the pressure of school is gone and I can do things on my own schedule.

Ah, and for the record: Jonathan, yer a silleh kitteh.

Brutal & Fantastic

I’m not popular and I’m not disliked. I’ve never been anything but the “middle-guy”, the person who gets along with nearly everyone. I often stick up for people who don’t defend themselves and I’m usually the last person you’ll find to be breaking a rule. At school I’m the president of student council, the voice people here all day over the announcements and the Emcee to most school assemblies. My life is pretty water tight, but there’s one thing that I’ve never been able to do … I’ve never been able to control my own anger. When an individual (or group of) upsets me, I have an incredibly difficult time placing my feelings of rage aside and letting things go. Instead I often have moments where I quickly need to pull things into control, a situation that I have power over. Last week I did something that I’m quite disappointed in.

I live in the country and I don’t drive a car, which means the bus is my main transportation between school and home. I sit in the middle of the school bus because the back is usually full of the “I’m bad ass and you know it” type students. This doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t think it matters where I sit for my 15 minute ride and avoiding trouble is probably best anyway. The other day however, something happened that probably changed me as a person. Before I write another introductory paragraph, let me jump right into what happened.

It started out as an ordinary day. Nothing special or exciting was happening. The only thing that I really remember from this day is how tired I was. I was really looking forward to going home and catching a few hours of rest. The day at school ended fairly quickly and I was ready to get on the bus for the short journey home. I climbed aboard and flopped down into my seat. I think I put my head against the window and closed my eyes. A few moments later a group of 5 guys loudly clambered on the bus too. Already they were being obnoxious and rude. They were pushing each other, swearing like pirates and breaking probably every rule a bus has. The whole ride home they would shout incredibly dirty words to random pedestrians on the street. I was fuming inside, but I didn’t quite know how to tell 5 guys (who were much larger, although younger than me) to stop.

What should have been a 15 minute ride felt like weeks. My heart was racing from the rage and I was pretty sure I was thinking of the best way to seek my revenge on them the whole way home. Luckily I’m the first stop on the route, because what I decided to do was to address all of them on their horrible misdeeds.

Concerts galore!

As some of you frequent readers may already know, I work at a theatre in my city that hosts a lot of live concerts (among other things). Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week marked the Empire Theatre’s 5th anniversary and Empire Square Live’s 2nd anniversary … which means we were busy putting on a show for 3600 every single night! It’s quite an amazing job, but it’s also very tiring as well. The Empire Theatre can seat 700 patrons indoors, but these past three nights have been outside in our special venue. This allows us to pack the place with many more party-type customers and guests.

Thursday night Peter Frampton played and the crowd absolutely loved him! It was a wild time, I tell you. Hands up in the air and beer sales going through the roof of course. I’ve never seen a more rowdy crowd these past two years at the Empire. Rock and roll music always draws in big crowds, but it was nothing compared to what we saw the night after…

Friday night we had one of the country music’s most beloved superstars – Randy Travis. The whole venue was PACKED even before the show started. Country music folk are always really kind hearted and considerate for the most part, so we didn’t have a huge mess to clean up after the show was over (big enough, but not insane). Compared to Frampton the crowed almost seemed docile, but I could tell that they too were having a lot of fun. I liked the kind of music that Randy Travis played the other night. For some reason the entire night seemed to drag on a bit though. I kept thinking it was much later than it actually was. Country music can be kind of slow I suppose. Travis seems like a great person though, he signed autographs for about 10 minutes after the site shut down, which is pretty uncommon for someone to do in a crowd as big as the one we had.

Saturday night we had some local bands playing, one of which was Photograph. This is the band that my boss plays in and it always gives me a strange feeling to think that he’s so awesome. I mean, come on – how many bosses in the world run huge businesses during the day and play guitar on stage at night in front of a thousand or so people? That’s pretty awesome in my mind. He must be living a great life! Saturday night was my absolute favourite because it was all general admission standing tickets being sold. What this means is that we didn’t have to take down chairs tonight in order to clean up all of the garbage left behind…it was sort of just done for us. The chair company that we rent from offered to clean them up for us, and I definitely couldn’t have been happier with that decision of theirs.

All in all I think it was a great anniversary celebration. I worked a lot of hours, but I also made quite a bit of money too. I’m definitely looking forward to going back to work inside the theatre though. As great as our outdoor venues are, it’s just much easier to manage 700 people than it is 3600.

I’m no incubator!

I’m pretty sure I’m getting the flu or something. I woke up this morning and my throat was pretty sore. I’m sure you recognize the feeling when you think you’re getting sick but you’re not quite there yet. I’m right at that stage and it’s getting on my nerves. Hopefully it will just pass and I won’t have to give it another thought. I feel like I’m just a big incubator, keeping all of these germs safe from the cruel cold world. Well, pack up and get the heck outta my system please and thanks! ;_; I simply can’t afford to get sick these next two weeks.

We had two school assemblies today and I was required to speak at both of them. The student council president usually gets to give a bit of a speech at the start of the year, but I sensed a problem when I was asked to do it this time around: I’m not the student council president. At least, I thought I wasn’t. Apparently I’ve been thrown into the position this year again even though it was something I wasn’t particularly interested in doing. I mean…I was planning on helping out here and there, but somehow now I’m the leader of this organization? My word, there’s something definitely wrong with that I think. I wasn’t a very good president in previous years and, well…frankly I found it boring anyway. This is my last year as a highschool student though so I might as well lend my new found strengths to the student body as much as I can. For some reason this year I’m having an amazing time talking to large groups, performing and just being a generally well liked guy. I’ve been pretty lucky with that I suppose…I’ve always sat right in the middle of groups. Never quite the most popular, never disliked…just right in the middle.

Oh, I ramble.

Phantom of the Opera – He’s inside my mind alright!

This is an entry I posted a while ago on another blog of mine, but just recently it happened all over again. It took me a while to find the entry but once I did it was quite scary to see just how similar the two situations were. Happy reading.

Does this situation sound familiar?

It’s late. You’re tired, but you can’t seem to fall asleep. You keep tossing and turning, hoping that in time you’ll drift off. An hour ticks by. Another hour. Another. You’re still awake. The reason? You have a song playing over and over in your head and it’s driving you insane.

If this has ever happened to you, don’t worry. You’re not alone! If this hasn’t happened to you then I strongly suggest you manage to keep it that way. It’s torture!

This morning at 3 AM, I woke up and I was incredibly thirsty. I got up out of bed, opened my door and walked drowsily into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of juice. I happily drank the cool peachy liquid, and shuffled off back to my bedroom so that I could get some more sleep before morning. I laid down and covered myself up with various sheets and blankets. As time slowly passed, I realised I wasn’t falling back asleep. In fact, I was getting more awake with each passing moment. This happens to me all the time, so I knew it to be no surprise. In most cases, I usually tough it out and wait for half an hour or so. I usually fall back into sleep no problem – but today was different. It was “one of those” moments. I had the main theme song from “Phantom of the Opera” playing over, and over and over and over in my head. Particularly the one line; “Inside my mind.” If you’ve listened to the music you’ll know exactly what I mean.

The first hour (3:00 – 4:00) was okay. I mean, sure it bothered me that I couldn’t fall back to sleep, but I wasn’t upset to tears about it. The next hour (4:00 – 5:00) started to really get on my nerves. That one line (and some stupid others) were playing in my head so frequently I thought I was going to go insane. What’s more is, the harder I tried to stop thinking about it, the more I did. Finally 6 AM rolled around and I said to myself “Screw it. I’ll get up.” I went back to the kitchen and I found my Dad sitting at the table having his daily coffee before work. I decided to eat breakfast and go watch some television to take my mind of the song. It worked, but sheesh! Talk about a bad night. It’ll be a long time before I can listen to Phantom of the Opera again.

Has this ever happened to you?

The Crash Phase

Being sad is being human. We all go through cycles of depression that can make our world crumble. Not only is this harmful emotionally to yourself, but it can effect the people around you in this manner as well. A great deal of time was spent working out a system that takes us through what I call “The Crash Phase”, a moment in time where depression first starts to effect your body. This calculated phase is a personal representation of my own life, but it some situations can be applied globally to all persons.

Please note the chart does not describe what you’re seeking as “happiness”. It could be anything from material to romance. Please also note that step 3 brings about an “automatic crash phase” with no reason, as step 3 in itself can be considered a crash phase. Lastly, note the recovery phase between step 5 and step 1. You could consider the only successful part in the chart as failure. It still needs a lot of work but the first stages of The Crash Phase are well underway.

Icy Green Tea

I guess I should say “Chilled Green Tea”, really. I was in the kitchen early this evening and I thought I’d use a few of my green tea pouches to make a jug of iced tea. I drink it all the time at work but I had never really thought about making my own. I plugged in my electric kettle and I patiently waited for it to whistle. While I was waiting I placed two satchels of green tea into a large jar and sang a little bit of music to pass the time. When the kettle started to whistle I unplugged it and filled the jar up with boiling water. I was originally going to use a large container, but I thought the lid on the jar might be nice since I was going to be leaving it to cool on the counter for a few hours. Once the jar was full I let the tea bags swim for about 5 minutes until I had a nice golden brown liquid brewing. I took the tea bags out and plopped them into the trash can. It was then I decided I would add my ingredients. After all, it’s really not enough to just have cold green tea, is it?

I added two tablespoons of regular white sugar, and a large squeeze of honey from the bottle in the cupboard. I gave it a large stir and then put the jar’s lid back on, but not tightly. I wanted to let the steam vent a bit because it was really hot. After doing this I went to the freezer and took out an ice tray. It still had one or two cubes left in it, but I decided that wasn’t enough to ice my tea once it had cooled. I ate the two ice cubes (I love doing that) and filled the tray up with water before sticking it back in the freezer. A few hours later and…presto! Water to ice. By this time too my tea had cooled considerably, but was still quite warm. I popped the cubes out of the tray and put them into a large juice container on the counter. Then I had a brilliant idea! I grabbed a coffee filter from the cupboard beside the microwave and took the removable filter holding decide out of my coffee maker and held it over the juice container. I filtered out all of the little impurities you might find after brewing a cup of tea (those stray bits you find in the bottom of your mug). This worked quite well, and the tea actually looked really smooth and tasty after as well (although it was probably just in my head). I put the juice container that was half full of tea into the refrigerator for an hour and went to watch some T.V..

When I returned it was quite cold, so I was ready to take a drink to see what all of my hard work had done. It was…pretty bland. Nothing new or interesting. I thought to myself “There’s get to be something more I can do to give it flavour!” So, I went for a dig into the refrigerator and what do I find? A bottle of lime juice. I had seen citrus flavoured green tea before. I figured that things couldn’t go too wrong if I added a squirt or six into the mix. Sure enough this was what it needed.

I now have half a jug of chilled green tea in my fridge that is quite tasty, and almost certainly never worth the work to make again. XD

Move over Harry, the Muggles have this one!

Alright, here’s the deal: It’s 2 AM. I’m tired. I’m actually feeling quite…suggestible. I’ll keep this appropriate in any case. After having a nice long conversation with our friend Nir I have made a startling discovery about the world of magic and all that thrives upon it!

Mull this over, if you please: Harry Potter and the world of magic is all fun and games. In fact, it’s quite fun to think about what it would be like if we were wizards instead of non-magic folk. I used to do it all the time! Recently, not so much. Now and again though I’ll have some thoughts on why wizards fail and muggles (that’s you and I) succeed in every possible way. If wizarding folk were all that great then they’d be able to do once simple thing. My friends, I ask you…If wizards can kill people by muttering a simple curse, then why can’t they figure out how to fix Harry’s poor vision? Why must he suffer the disability of poor sight? Heck, muggles can do it via laser eye surgery and that doesn’t involve magic at all! Well…laser’s are quite magically but that’s beside the point.

GOOD LORD!

*shakes fist*

That’s right! I’m shaking my fist because I am quite angry. Just recently I had started my new blog, which is hosted on my own personal account. For some odd reason all of my e-mails, personal account information and even things I had viewed on the internet were turning up in my blog (and in turn, here on the Planet). Passwords I had sent to people for their e-mail accounts, photographs and even things from my clipboard were ending up in my blog even though I hadn’t posted them. Immediately I thought “Crap, I’ve got an enemy who knows my password.” Immediately after I thought this was quite impossible. My passwords are outlandishly long and always random. While I was on MSN last I was talking to Ben and I kindly asked him to remove my blog from the Planet. It wasn’t worth getting in trouble over and it wasn’t worth having my personal information posted publicly for all to see…

You can’t sterotype life!

I don’t think I have any one particular story I want to share. My life, especially lately, feels like one big mosaic storyboard. Sometimes I’m extremely upset or depressed and other times I feel like I have the most perfect life that ever walked the face of the Earth. I suppose the chemical changes in my body could be responsible for these feelings. It’s not an uncommon thing for someone my age to go through mood swings every other day…or every other minute to be more accurate. I was at work the other night and I had to stop for a moment, because a rather strange thought entered my head. I thought “Wow, it’s pretty neat that I’m an independent human being.”, and that was it. It scares me to think that there are people in the world who can’t take care of themselves at any age, and always rely on others to get them through their days. Who would “Ryan” be without his independence and responsibilities? Probably a very sad, sad man.

So I bought a new box of green tea the other day. One with 48 bags in it…I was with my friend Lyndsay when I was buying it, and we were debating whether or not I should go for the 72 bag box or not. I mean…I drink four or five cups a day, so it probably would have been a good idea to spend the money to get the extra bags. Oh well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt me to go back and get more whenever I run out. I’ve stopped drinking orange pekoe completely now and have moved on to 100% green tea. At work I usually have one of those glass bottles of Arizona Green Tea also…if all this tea is as good as they say it is, I’m going to live a long, long time. What’s the saying? Something like “All good things in moderation”? Oops! The ball has been ‘dropped’ on this one. Maybe I’ll die sooner than I thought? Or I’ll get hit by a truck or something stupid with a green tea in-hand. I can see the headlines now…

I’ve started playing Twilight Princess for the Wii again. I haven’t really picked it up since I beat it three days after Christmas of 07′, so I figured I was due for a replay sometime soon. Using the Wii mote to swing my sword around is really getting me excited for Force Unleashed that’s being released soon. The only downfall of this light saber swinging action game is that it won’t be multi player…which means I won’t be able to slice any of you unless you want to take a trip up to Ontario. It’ll be fun…I have air conditioning and lots of freezies. Oh, and I’m not insane, so it’s likely I won’t chop you up and eat you if I win. No promises though. I get pretty competitive. Rory didn’t really leave…he beat me at a game. Oh, and speaking of games…I’ve still yet to pick up a copy of Mario Kart. Gods…it sounds really fun, but I currently have very little funds to spend on games since I haven’t been working a lot at the theatre. Things slow down this time of the year, and my spending habits unfortunately have to follow suit. Since I’m on staff though, I guess I can take bribes now…You know where to reach me. /me taps his PM box.

Here’s a really funny story, which also brings us to the title of this blog entry! Finally, I know. My friend Kirstie and I were walking to the store with another pal of ours. Some random dude walked up beside us and said “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be hanging out with them!”, so my friend Kirstie screamed “You can’t stereotype life!” right out loud at him in the funniest way possible…hahahahhaaha. I guess you’d have to be there to really appreciate it. It caught me off guard, because it was clever. Yes, she’s quite clever.

Enough about me, how are you?